NYFF ’14: Gone Girl

Nick Dunne looks the part of a Scott Peterson surrogate, but he is probably not guilty of murdering his wife, Amy. Probably. Nonetheless, nobody would call him innocent. Frankly, that is true of everyone involved in this sordid affair, but that does not stop the wolf-pack media from anointing victims and villains in David Fincher’s Gone Girl (trailer here), the opening night film of the 52^nd New York Film Festival.

It does not take very long to find the cracks and strains in the Dunnes’ marriage. A great deal of it involves money. Since both were laid off, they have had to rely on her much depleted trust fund. There are other issues as well, which will be revealed over time, but with varying degrees of credibility. Regardless, it is perfectly logical for the police to initially suspect Dunne when his wife disappears under mysterious circumstances. When they discover large pools of her blood have been freshly scrubbed from the Dunnes’ kitchen floor, the noose tightens. However, a number of game-changing shoes will drop in the second and third acts.

Adapting her own novel, first-time screenwriter Gillian Flynn is unusually adept at maintaining the unreliable narration and related narrative devices that are often sacrificed in page to screen transfers. Still, some things are crystal clear, such as her withering contempt for the baying media hounds. Missi Pyle plays a character named Ellen Abbott, but she might as well wear a name tag that says: “hello, my name is Nancy Grace.” It is not a flattering portrayal.

However, the depiction of marriage is just as jaundiced. While it might sound like some sort of “the stranger I married” Lifetime movie (a genre unto themselves that drew a snarky comment or two at the NYFF presser), the film really hinges on just how well the Dunnes know each other.

Rosamund Pike was very good in Barney’s Version and unjustly overlooked in Jack Reacher, but she takes her craft to a new level as Amy Dunne. For reasons that would be spoilery to explain, it is a physically and emotionally rigorous performance that brings to mind Bette Davis at her most noir (and that it not suggested lightly). Tyler Perry (yes, that Tyler Perry) is nearly as a great a surprise, killing it as Dunne’s lawyer, Tanner Bolt (cool name). He deliberately refrains from channeling well known celebrity attorneys, but he projects the intelligence and charisma you would dearly want in a defense attorney.

Poor Ben Affleck took some Batman ribbing in stride at the press conference, but he is solidly good to very good as the highly flawed Nick Dunne. Neil Patrick Harris also has his moments as Desi Collings, Amy’s well heeled, but decidedly squirrely ex-boyfriend and possibly stalker. Nevertheless, it is hard for those who share the screen with Pike’s Dunne to get out of her dominating shadow.

Gone Girl is definitely a rebound film for Fincher after the completely unnecessary and largely uninspired Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake, but it still does not have the distinctive auteurist stamp of films like Fight Club and Se7en. Arguably, this is more of a writer and actor’s vehicle. Even though she does not exactly mirror the structure of her source novel, Flynn’s screenplay is still cleverly constructed, even though she allows the endgame to drag out a bit, rubbing our noses in the story’s implications.

Unfortunately, the film is probably too dark, too thrillerish, and far too morally ambiguous to garner much Oscar love, with the notable exception of Pike, who deserves to be in contention for best actress. For the rest of us civilians, it is quite a good suspenser. Recommended for fans of mainstream film noir, Gone Girl kicked off this year’s NYFF last night at Alice Tully Hall, in advance of its October 3^rd opening.

Malick’s To the Wonder

It seems eerily fitting that Terrence Malick’s To the Wonder would be the final film reviewed by the auteur’s longtime champion, Roger Ebert.  It is rather more surreal to think Olga Kurylenko commenced production on Malick’s latest in 2010, the same year she worked on the forthcoming but already infamous mermaid potboiler Empires of the Deep.  Yet, any new film from Malick is a cinematic event in its own right.  The director’s admirers will find it is very much a Malickian statement, except perhaps more so, when To the Wonder (trailer here) opens tomorrow in New York.

Neil and Marina meet in France and fall deeply in love.  He is a visiting American.  She is a Ukrainian single mother.  Intending to start a new life together, she and her daughter Tatiana move into his Oklahoma home, where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.  Their dreamy ardor persists for a while, but soon fissures develop in their relationship.  Eventually, Marina and Tatiana return to Europe.  She and Neil eventually feel compelled to make another try, but this time her daughter stays with her (unseen) father.  Despite the support of the equally alienated Father Quintana, the couple’s issues persist.

Just under two hours, Wonder is practically a short subject by Malick’s standards.  However, he makes absolutely no stylistic concessions.  Frankly, it is more like a series of tableaux than a movie, even of the art house variety.  Framing lovely images is a hallmark of Malick’s work, so his striking vistas should come as no surprise.  Yet, at some point, moving pictures really ought to, you know, move.

Throughout Wonder, Malick’s favored perspective on Ben Affleck’s Neil is the back of his head, which is obviously deliberately distancing.  Yet, in a way it suits the reserved and reticent Oklahoman.  Even as Malick and his characters seemingly strain to shut viewers out, cracks of profundity occasionally open up in the film.  In one particularly heavy moment, Father Quintana counsels Neil it is always difficult to be the one who loves less than their partner.  Indeed, Neil has plenty of guilt to process without the consolation of Marina’s emotional reveries.  There’s something for the daytime talk shows to chew on.

Naturally, Father Quintana has lost (or at least misplaced) his faith.  Nonetheless, it is a deeply sympathetic portrait of a man of the cloth.  Malick unflinchingly captures his loneliness and the imperfect solace he finds in service to others.  Javier Bardem might not dig into such deep and dark places as he did for Biutiful, but he still conveys a sense of a man with a long, complicated history. 

Since nobody is really granted a substantial backstory, it is incumbent on the cast to evoke the sense their pains and regrets are rooted in something real and universal.  That is a real strength for Bardem.  Whereas Affleck is supposed to be cold and aloof, Olga Kurylenko is also surprisingly effective and affecting as the passionately needy Marina.

Viewers who lose patience with Wonder are not shallow philistines.  Malick de-emphasizes plot and character development in favor of imagery and in-the-moment impressionism.  It is slow and at time pretentious.  Yet, at the fleeting junctures where it all comes together, it is like the epiphany produced by an audacious free jazz performance.  Dashed demanding, To the Wonder is mostly recommended for hardy Malick followers when it opens tomorrow (4/12) in New York at the Walter Reade Theater uptown and the Landmark Sunshine downtown.

Argo: In Iran, There Are No Second Takes

It was a time of malaise.  In 1979, the iconic Hollywood sign had fallen into a state of disrepair, but there was still a patriotic old guard willing to invest their time and reputations in a film that would never be made, for the sake of their country.  Recruited by CIA “exfiltration” specialist Tony Mendez, two movie industry veterans provided the cover for a long classified rescue operation.  During the Iranian hostage crisis, the Canadian ambassador furtively sheltered six U.S. embassy employees, at considerable personal risk.  Mendez devised a plan to fly them out in broad daylight, posing as crew members of a Star Wars knock-off.  Their stranger-than-fiction mission has become Ben Affleck’s Oscar contending Argo (trailer here), which opens today in New York.

In its opening voiceover narration, Argo makes it clear everything that happened in Iran was the fault of America and Great Britain, because we supported the Shah.  After we are properly chastised, Argo then admits the early days of the Islamic Revolutionary regime were little more than a reign of terror, culminating with the seizure of the American embassy, in gross violation of international law.  Carefully modeled on actual news footage, these occupation sequences are a harrowing depiction of mass fanaticism at its most savage, but also highly cinematic.

Caught flat-footed, the Carter Administration (which had pressured the Shah to abdicate, assuming the Ayatollah would mellow once entrusted with power) is at a total loss.  The Canadian Ambassador simply cannot shelter his “house guests” indefinitely and it is only a matter of time before the hostage takers realize they are short six Foreign Service Officers.  Most of the proposed action plans bear little or no relation to the on-the-ground realities.  Of course, Mendez does not have any better ideas, until he thinks of make-up artist John Chambers, the man who created Spock’s ears, who secretly volunteers his “transformative” services to the CIA.

The plan is daring in its conception.  Mendez will enter Iran via Canada on the pretext that he is scouting locations for a sci-fi epic set on a rather Persian looking alien world.  A few days later, he simply flies out again with six of his crew members.  Of course, it is rather more complicated than that.  To be credible, Argo, as the non-film within the film is titled, must have legit names attached to it and generate some trade press.  Old school producer Lester Siegel can take care of that.

Argo really packs a punch when conveying the overwhelming oppressiveness and paranoia of Revolutionary Iran.  The atmosphere is truly overpowering and profoundly scary.  Yet, Affleck effectively breaks up the mood with the Sorkinesque absurdities of the Carter Administration and the outright comic relief provided by Siegel and Chambers.  However, their “kvetching for freedom” never feels overly silly or forced.  Instead, viewers clearly understand these old cats are used to dealing with serious situations through humor.

As Mendez, Ben Affleck broods and bluffs convincingly enough, but his work on the other side of the camera far more distinctive.  John Goodman and Alan Arkin are absolutely perfect as the real life Chambers and the composite-figure Siegel.  They both deliver zingers like the old pros they are, while still projecting an unabashed love of country that is quite endearing.  Yet, Bryan Cranston gets some of the film’s sharpest lines as Jack O’Donnell, Mendez’s superior at the Agency.

Aside from the audio from a ridiculously self-serving interview with Jimmy Carter heard during the closing credits, the sure-footed Affleck avoids politicizing his tight narrative.  He keeps the tension cranked up, but has the good sense to unleash his colorful supporting cast.  Given the presumed field of Oscar candidates, it probably deserves to be in the mix.  Recommended for those fascinated with the history of espionage, Argo opens today (10/12) in theaters throughout the City, including the AMC Loews Lincoln Square.

Boston Banking: The Town

How does Red Sox Nation make ends meet? Evidently, armed robbery is the leading source of employment in the Charlestown section of Boston. Everyone might be doing it, but Doug MacRay’s gang is good at it. One particularly ambitious bank job earns them a whole lot of federal attention in Ben Affleck’s The Town (trailer here), which opens nationwide this Friday.

MacRay’s combination armored car/bank heist went just about exactly as planned. However, when Jem Coughlin, his edgy childhood friend, briefly takes the bank manager hostage, it later raises security questions for the crooks. While shadowing the shell-shocked Claire Keesey, circumstances lead MacRay to ask her out. Naturally, things start to develop, which is hard to explain to Coughlin, who still hopes MacRay will get back together with his sister Krista, an oxy-addled trampy single mother.

Harboring ambitions of a new life, MacRay wants out, but Charlestown’s local crime boss "Fergie the Florist" has other ideas. He has a source that can get them into the cash vault inside Fenway Park, a Boston stadium that became a minor footnote in sports history due to the semi-pro team that plays there. Of course, getting in is the easy part. Needless to say, the dogged Special Agent Adam Frawley is out to complicate matters further.

Based on the novel Prince of Thieves by Chuck Hogan, Town is not exactly the most original story, but the execution is consistently sharp. Effectively weaving back and forth from a moody crime drama and a shoot-‘em-up heist movie, Affleck again directs himself and a noteworthy ensemble cast quite well. His MacRay basically comes in three speeds: coolly down-to-business, sullen, and armed & seething, but frankly that is about right for a heist noir protagonist.

However, Town’s real star might be Mad Men’s Jon Hamm, who supplies a jolt of electricity whenever he is on-screen as MacRay’s G-man nemesis. A truly fine ensemble piece, the talented Rebecca Hall is also somehow able to scratch out some memorable scenes for the “woe-is-me” Keesey (much as she did in Nicole Holofcener’s self-important mish-mash Please Give). Pete Postlethwaite and Chris Cooper add further colorful texture as Fergie and MacRay’s incarcerated father, respectively. As for Blake Lively, she certainly looks like an armored carload of trouble as sister Krista.

Clearly, Affleck has a visible affinity for Town’s noir-ish genre and Boston setting. He also seems to be working his way through the city’s official neighborhoods, following-up his acclaimed Dorchester-set directorial debut Gone Baby Gone. It appears to be a fairly rich vein for him to mine. Indeed, Town is pretty solid all the way around, featuring some scene-stealing work from Hamm. It opens wide today (9/17), including the Village East here in New York.